Air crash controller 'was making call'

An air traffic controller who was making a personal phone call when a small plane and a helicopter collided over New York's Hudson River has been removed from duty along with his supervisor, who was out of the building at the time.

The Federal Aviation Administration said that a New Jersey controller and his supervisor have been placed on administrative leave after the controller was found to be involved in "apparently inappropriate conversations" at the time of the crash between a small plane and a tour helicopter that killed nine people. The controller had handed off the monitoring of the small plane involved in the collision to another airport shortly before the midair collision.